Too Much Love Around the Middle
by Hawk Clowd
Summary: When Shuichi begins with a conversation with the words y'know, Eiri knows to expect the worst.


**Title:** Too Much Love Around the Middle  
**Author:** Hawk Clowd  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own them. I don't want them. The usual stuff applies. Gravitation belongs to Maki Murakami and I am more than happy to leave them to her!  
**Blood Type:** Zippo. There is no blood type. So there.  
**Warnings:** A few four-letter words.  
**Author's Notes:** ... I apologize. It's just... A few months ago I was sitting around, watching television with Leilla and she pointed out that Yuki Eiri spends all day in front of a computer, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. And yet he has a _really_ nice body. (All that beer lifting, we decided, made him buff. Rawr.) I've been thinking about that a lot, for some reason, and so my fingers kicked in and started typing up this little bit of nonsense. What if...?

---

"Y'know," Shuichi said one afternoon in that voice that clearly told Eiri that the singer was trying to approach a touchy subject without saying anything definite out right. Shuichi seemed to think that starting conversations that way would catch Eiri off of his guard or keep him from running away from the talk; he couldn't have been more wrong. Voices like that were often accompanied, after all, by phrases such as "I think you'd make a great father " (truly, a blatant lie) or "Wouldn't my finger look so _nice_ with a ring on it?" (sometimes true, perhaps. Eiri did not like to stick around to find out), so Eiri had learned -- long before Shuichi had come along -- to be wary of The Voice.

He used The Voice too, every once in awhile, but rarely for anything serious. Normally he used it on the rare occasions he felt tactful and he said things such as "It's a shame we don't have any clean laundry about, else we could go out" or "I think the acoustics are better in the apartment down the hall. Why not sing there and find out?". Nothing serious and nothing important. That was his rule.

All of Shuichi's statements implicating The Voice always started with "y'know". It was a rather irritating habit, Eiri thought, but he wasn't at all sure how to make it stop.

"Y'know," Shuichi began, "you should really think about coming along with me and Hiro some weekend when we go out."

Alarm bells went off in Eiri's head. His fingers pounded words out of his keyboard and onto the computer screen in front of him. He pretended not to have heard a thing.

Shuichi, unfortunately, knew better. He folded his arms over the back of Eiri's chair and stayed there, leaning in just slightly. "Really, you should. You could have a great time. Just once or twice a week... Wednesdays and Saturdays would be awesome."

Eh? Eiri did some quick scheduling in his head. About a year ago, Shuichi had come home raving about some charity event Bad Luck had attended at a local gym and spa and had, immediately afterward, starting going there twice a week to play with the equipment, accompanied by Hiro and five or six of K's appointed bodyguards. Eiri hadn't minded, as it toned Shuichi's already trim body rather nicely, and the gym had encouraged it, as they had quickly discovered that, once fans realized that Hiro and Shuichi were regulars there, having the pop-rock stars show up once or twice a week really helped their business. Shuichi and Hiro regularly changed their gym days, simply so that the place wouldn't get too crowded or they wouldn't get mobbed (much), and their days, this season, were...

Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Fuck.

Eiri's fingers stilled on the keys and the words stopped. He glanced at Shuichi suspiciously. "What are you getting at?"

"Not much," Shuichi said carefully as he sidled up around the chair, pushed Eiri's laptop out of the way, and sat himself down on the edge of Eiri's desk. "I just figured out might like to go out with us--"

"To the gym," Eiri interrupted skeptically.

Shuichi hesitated and then nodded. "To the gym," he confirmed. "I mean, I _really_ doubt you want to go sing karaoke or play arcade games with us, so..."

There was more to it. Eiri _knew_ there was more to it. He could feel it. He waited and narrowed his eyes at the singer. Sure enough, Shuichi babbled on.

"After all, you don't _do_ anything much but sit in front of your desk and type and drink beer and smoke," Shuichi pointed out quickly. "I sorta' figured you probably got restless sometimes, what with not getting any exercise -- and sex doesn't count, no matter what you say -- and you might just like it... So why not? You'd get out more and have fun at the gym and it couldn't hurt your health, either. _OR_ your body!"

He was going to sound like a chick if he said it. He _knew_ that. But...

"Wait. What's wrong with my body?" Eiri asked. He was not a vain man. He really wasn't. But he _did_ like to look good. It made him feel a little better about his self... and it certainly didn't hurt his book sales at all, either.

"Nothing!" Shuichi assured him quickly. "Nothing at all!" His eyebrows knit together briefly and Eiri suddenly noticed that the singer had taken out his eyebrow piercing. The area was a little red and (dare he say it?) swollen; Eiri bet that it had become infected. Again. It was strange; Shuichi had come home with that eyebrow piercing long before his whole gym craze had set in, yet it consistently got infected because Shuichi forgot to take care of it. How could someone so obsessed with a gym routine forget about something that was stuck to his face all day?

Eiri frowned. He hadn't lived with Shuichi for five -- or was it six? -- years just to be lied to like that.

Sure enough, Shuichi babbled on. Again. "It's just... When we first met you used to take walks and stuff and you had washboard abs and it looked super-sexy and now you're getting a little flabby -- not that anyone who doesn't see you naked would notice -- and I'm getting a little worried about your health!"

Chick time again.

"...You think I'm getting fat?"

Shuichi flushed a bright, bright red. "No! But you're --"

"I'm twenty-nine," Eiri pointed out. "I think I'm allowed to stop looking like a sex god once I hit the age of --" He was interrupted by a little wail from the singer. The writer stared at him.

"Yu... Yuki doesn't care about his heaeaaaaalth," Shuichi wailed, tears brimming and threatening to spill over. The singer wibbled.

Five -- six? -- years of dealing with this kid and _still_ Shuichi's little tear attacks could send Eiri into a bit of a panic. He _hated_ to see Shuichi cry, mostly because of the accompanying wails gave him a headache and the brat and an awful habit of using Eiri's shirts to wipe his face.

Shit.

"You should be glad if I'm putting on some weight," Eiri snapped back in a brash, not well-thought out attempt at making Shuichi calm down. "It means I'm remembering to eat for once!"

The wailing began then. Not just little, pathetic wails. Loud, ear-splitting wails, fully backed up by Shuichi's powerful voice and lung capacity. "Yuki's gonna dieieeee…!"

Eiri covered his ears and tried threats and random promises, shooting them out quickly without even registering what he was saying -- _anything_ to make Shuichi stop before the neighbors called (Eiri could just hear it now: "Excuse me. We're sorry to bother you and we don't mean to offend, but we would much appreciate it if you and Shindou-sama would please keep down the noise..."). He must have finally said something Shuichi liked, because the singer clammed up and stopped the waterworks as quickly as they had begun. Then he hopped off of the desk, kissed the tip of Yuki's nose, and grinned brightly.

"I'm glad you agreed!" he exclaimed. "I'll remind you on Saturday before we go and I already bought you a membership and we're going to have lots of fun!" That said, he pinched a bit of skin around Yuki's waist line and laughed. He gave the writer one last kiss and then ran out.

Eiri bashed his head into his desk a few times. Shuichi was right, he knew -- he had been doing a lot more sitting and a lot less walking lately, so it wouldn't hurt to get back into shape... But when, he wondered, had Shuichi figured out that Eiri was so easy to manipulate?!

Ah, well. Eiri glanced back out the door to spy Shuichi laying on the floor, on his stomach, watching television. Eiri shook his head and a smile touched his lips.

Little brat.

**--the end--**


End file.
